From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation

Fluid Expressions: The Prints of Helen Frankenthaler

Above: Helen Frankenthaler using a power tool to carve one of her Madame Butterfly woodblocks in Tyler Graphics Artist Studio, Mount Kisco, New York, 2000National Gallery of Australia, CanberraGift of Kenneth Tyler 2002Photograph: Marabeth Cohen-Tyler

Front cover:Japanese Maple 2005 16-color Ukiyo-e style woodcut26 x 38 in.

Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011) believed that a good print “bleeds” the artist’s

sensibility. Despite its collaborative process and replicative nature, a successful

print should exude the artist’s own “feeling, magic, head, heart.”1 For more than

five decades, Frankenthaler made prints with this resolve, instilling the technical

medium with a lyrical verve made famous by her radical “soak-stain” paintings.

Although more widely known as a painter, she was an equally inventive printmaker

who took risks in a medium not frequently explored by abstract expressionists.

This exhibition features the stunning range of print techniques that she innovated

and adapted to fit her painterly aesthetic. With vibrant abstractions and luminous

washes of color, Frankenthaler’s prints do indeed bleed with a palpable exuberance.

A leading member of the second generation of abstract expressionists,

Frankenthaler came of age in the heart of New York’s avant-garde art world.

Married to artist Robert Motherwell and close friends with fellow painter Jackson

Pollock and art critic Clement Greenberg, she carved out her own successful

career in a notoriously male-dominated field. In 1952, Frankenthaler catapulted to

fame with her invention of the soak-stain technique, a method of pouring thinned

paint onto an unprimed canvas to create a translucent watercolor effect.2 Her

gestural process—crouching low over a canvas laid on the ground and flicking her

wrist to pour the pigment—broadened the practice of Abstract Expressionism and

pioneered the Color Field movement.

Keeping with the ethos of postwar art, Frankenthaler’s paintings celebrate

the spontaneity of creation. In pooling paint freely on raw canvas, allowing

layers of color to flow and seep into neighboring fields of iridescent wash,

Frankenthaler’s method embraced chance and emphasized the materiality of the

canvas. The artist championed a type of image that “looks as if it were born in a

Fluid Expressions: The Prints of Helen FrankenthalerMichaela R. Haffner

minute”—effortless, expressive, unstudied—and imbued each work with a pul-

sating sense of immediacy.3

Understandably, printmaking and its technical, often laborious, process did

not immediately resonate with Frankenthaler. When Tatyana Grosman at Universal

Limited Art Editions (ULAE) in West Islip, New York, first approached the painter

in 1960 about the possibility of making prints, Frankenthaler was reluctant. “I

was very suspicious and full of questions,” she recalled. “It seemed sort of old-

fashioned and not the sort of thing that I would be interested in.”4 Indeed, many

abstract expressionists eschewed the medium because it was antithetical to the

direct and instinctive aesthetic they promoted. Printmaking required assistants,

long proofing processes, and often resulted in a final print far removed from the

initial drawing.

Ultimately, Grosman convinced Frankenthaler of the expressive potential of

lithography, and in 1961 the artist printed her initial lithograph, titled First Stone,

at ULAE. She would go on to make more than two hundred editions of prints over

the following five decades, innovating across a full range of techniques—etching,

lithography, pochoir, silkscreen, woodcut—and collaborating with workshops at

home and abroad. Frankenthaler worked most frequently at ULAE through the

1970s and then at Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village and Mount Kisco, New York,

in the last decades of the twentieth century, finding in both workshops an intimate

and collegial collaboration that allowed her the freedom to translate her painterly

preoccupations into the graphic medium.

Frankenthaler’s first introduction to printmaking was through lithography,

a print medium that most closely paralleled her painting background because it

allows for an image to be freely sketched, rather than incised, on the matrix. In the

lithograph The Red Sea (1978–82), Frankenthaler used tusche wash and crayon to

create the image’s diaphanous layers of ink. Foamy swaths of color flow together

and pool haphazardly, creating a liquid-surface effect evocative of the print’s title.

Printed on pale pink paper with eight colors of ink ranging from light magenta to

orange, the lithograph is striking in that it melds the rich colors of the image with

that of the paper support.

As a leading member of the Color Field movement, Frankenthaler was par-

ticularly interested in this pictorial puzzle of fusing image with support. Her stain

paintings of the 1950s had already achieved the optical effect—unprimed canvas

The Red Sea 1978–82 8-color lithograph24 x 28 in.

allowed paint to seep directly into the cloth instead of resting on top—and lithog-

raphy offered a new opportunity to continue this investigation. Unlike other print

techniques that produced a slightly raised surface, lithography printed the ink

flush with the paper, binding picture and paper in one plane. The gossamer yet flat

washes of color in works such as The Red Sea easily achieve this effect and recall

Frankenthaler’s belief that “It has to be flat, flat, flat, and also have miles into space.”5

Although The Red Sea has a free-flowing aesthetic that may appear effortless,

the lithograph went through twenty trial proofs, many with detailed annotations

by Frankenthaler, before arriving at its final composition. From selecting paper and

mixing ink to approving registration, Frankenthaler remained intimately involved

after completing the initial drawing. Her extensive trial proofs read like a journal of

her creative process, each slight alteration signaling both Frankenthaler’s learning

process and her inclination for sheer experimentation. As the artist once wryly

quipped, “I often feel at the end of an edition we should go to the Waldorf or the

Mayo clinic.”6 Alluding to the extreme intensity of the process, which could neces-

sitate either a stiff drink or a stint at a medical facility, Frankenthaler underscored

her need to be an active participant until the very end.

Despite Frankenthaler’s precision and perfectionism—she insisted on seeing

“every hairline of the doing”—her prints exude the same dazzling playfulness as

her gestural paintings.7 The artist adapted aspects of her soak-stain method for

the graphic medium, from pouring pools of ink tusche on the Bavarian stone to

installing the print matrices on the ground in order to work above the image. She

reflected, “At times I feel that when I’m throwing this tusche down on the stone,

it’s just like a canvas on the floor in my studio. I want to make the stone have that

same gesture and feel.”8 Frankenthaler’s adaptation of printmaking to fit her paint-

erly aesthetic wed the spontaneous and technical impulses of art making.

One of the artist’s most significant contributions to the field of printmaking

was her resurrection of the woodcut medium. An ancient print technique, the

woodcut had largely been abandoned after the German expressionist movement in

the first decades of the twentieth century. Although few contemporary artists were

working with the medium, Frankenthaler was encouraged by Grosman to make her

first woodcut at ULAE in 1973. The woodcut, which would become her “most frus-

trating, demanding, and satisfying graphic medium,” challenged Frankenthaler to

fashion her delicate, fluid shapes out of rigid material.9 At the same time, wood’s

Sanguine Mood 1971 5-color pochoir and silkscreen22 3⁄4 x 18 1⁄8 in.

granular texture offered the artist an exciting new visual element to incorporate

within her translucent, layered compositions.

Frankenthaler redefined the woodcut process through both technique and

aesthetic. In many of her early prints, the artist rejected the customary knives

and gouges used to carve images into the block’s surface. Instead, she wielded

a jigsaw to cut out entire wood shapes that were later pieced together to form

the image. In some prints, like Madame Butterfly (2000), Frankenthaler experi-

mented with using implements such as dental tools and sandpaper to distress,

or in her words to “guzzy,” the surfaces of the blocks.10 After making her messy

cuts and gashes to the wood, Frankenthaler then painted directly onto the panels.

Juxtaposing areas of opacity with luminescent veils of ink, the artist allowed the

wood grain’s striations to materialize through the washes. In Madame Butterfly,

the use of four different types of wood, more than one hundred different pastel

colors, and custom paper that simulated the wood’s texture combine to achieve

a dazzling effervescence. Frankenthaler’s bold experimentation with the woodcut

process, employing new methods and tools to achieve her abstract style, ulti-

mately allowed her to infuse life into an ancient and inflexible medium.

Frankenthaler’s prolific print career paralleled the American print renaissance

during the second half of the twentieth century. With the creation of new graphic

workshops, including ULAE in 1957, the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in 1960,

and Tyler Graphics Ltd. in 1974, the print medium received long-overdue funding,

technical modernization, and artistic attention. Frankenthaler’s collaboration with

ULAE and Tyler Graphics Ltd. placed her in the vanguard of this graphic revival and

inspired diverse innovation across printing methods. Beyond lithographs and wood-

cuts, Frankenthaler worked adventurously in aquatint, etching, Mixografia, pochoir,

and silkscreen. Her etchings such as Sure Violet (1979) are remarkable for their ethe-

real fields of overprinted color, while her Mixografia prints like Tahiti (1989) capitalize

on a proprietary print process to create dynamic three-dimensional relief surfaces.

The raised linear abstractions of Tahiti recall impasto painting with their thick and

sumptuous marks, challenging traditional notions of print aesthetics.

Frankenthaler continued to make prints until several years before her death

in 2011. The last decade of her career saw immense success with the creation of a

group of silkscreens that fully captured her painterly style in the graphic medium.

Leaving behind the flat color fields of early stencil prints like Sanguine Mood (1971)

Madame Butterfly 2000 102-color woodcut41 3⁄4 x 79 1⁄2 in.

Flirt 2003 42-color silkscreen26 7⁄8 x 39 1⁄4 in.

and Green Likes Mauve (1970), Frankenthaler imbued her silkscreens from the

early 2000s with the unfettered animation of the abstract expressionist move-

ment. Looking at Grey Fireworks (2000) from afar, it is easy to mistake the print’s

milky translucency and splatters of pigment for that of an oil painting. Foggy veils

of pastel colors are punctuated by bursts of blue, mauve, and orange, evoking

the night sky and fireworks referenced in the title. Similarly, Frankenthaler’s fluid

squeegee marks in blue and pink ink in Flirt (2003) trick the eye in their painterly

application. The saturated layer of ink on the print’s surface, with its apparent con-

tinuation beyond the edge of the paper sheet, conjures the free-flowing aesthetic

of oil painting or watercolor.

An intrepid innovator and brilliant artist, Frankenthaler expanded the technical

and aesthetic possibilities of the print discipline. While her prints share the lyri-

cism and luminosity of her iconic stain paintings, their profound sensitivity in a

medium driven by scientific process and replication is unparalleled. Her etchings,

lithographs, and most especially woodcuts inspired a fertile period of printmaking

and continue to reverberate today in their sheer experimentation. Unlike many

printmakers, Frankenthaler did not gravitate toward the medium for its ability to

reproduce and share images quickly and economically across a broad audience.

Her print editions were small and her process was meticulous, some editions

taking several years to complete. Despite the medium’s daunting challenges,

Frankenthaler lived for what she called the “magic moments” in printmaking—

the moments when everything aligns, from the weather to the weight of the

Grey Fireworks 2000 63-color silkscreen27 3⁄4 x 46 1⁄2 in.

sponge, so that “it happens.”11 Richly colorful and alive with imagination, her prints

embrace chance and bleed with a powerful creative energy.

Michaela R. Haffner is a Curatorial Assistant at the Amon Carter Museum of

American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.

1 Ruth Fine, Helen Frankenthaler: Prints (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1993), 13.2 For an overview of Frankenthaler’s career, see Pegram Harrison, Frankenthaler: A

Catalogue Raisonné: Prints, 1961−1994 (New York: Abrams, 1996).3 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Helen Frankenthaler Prints, 1961−1979 (New

York: Harper & Row, 1980. Published in association with Williams College, Artist-in-Residence Program), 29.

4 Ibid., 23.5 Karen Wilkin, “Helen Frankenthaler (1928−2011),” American Art 26, no. 3 (Fall 2012): 101.6 Clark Art Institute, Helen Frankenthaler Prints, 28.7 Ibid., 26.8 Ibid., 29−30.9 Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, 22.10 For background on Frankenthaler’s woodcut technique, see Judith Goldman,

Frankenthaler: The Woodcuts (Naples, FL: Naples Museum of Art, 2002).11 Clark Art Institute, Helen Frankenthaler Prints, 30.

Sure Violet 1979 13-color sugar-lift etching, aquatint and drypoint31 x 43 in.

Tahiti 1989 5-color Mixografia32 x 54 in.

Green Likes Mauve 1970 3-color pochoir22 x 30 1⁄2 in.

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, where I still reside, I bought my first paint-

ing when I was fourteen years old, from my mother’s contemporary northwest

art gallery, The Fountain Gallery of Art. That initial purchase—of Louis Bunce’s

Sanctuary—was the start of a lifelong passion for art. While my first love has been

artists of the Pacific Northwest, who I think are some of the best artists anywhere,

I began in the late 1980s to also collect contemporary prints and multiples of the

major American artists of our time. As word spread about my growing collection,

several museums contacted me for exhibitions. I soon found that sharing the work

from my collection was even more exciting than the joy I feel in collecting art. This

led to developing an art exhibition program that over the last twenty-five years has

resulted in organizing more than one hundred exhibitions from my collection that

have been exhibited at eighty-five museums.

After having loaned Frankenthaler’s prints to the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish

Art in Tulsa, I was excited when Curatorial Assistant Michaela Haffner from the

Amon Carter Museum of American Art approached me about expanding the exhi-

bition and traveling it to Fort Worth. Following the conversation with Michaela,

we were approached by Patricia Phagan, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, who also expressed interest in

the exhibition and we were delighted to add them to the tour.

Michaela’s essay about this exhibition is extremely informative. She helps us all

better understand the amazing role Helen Frankenthaler played in the context of

her contemporaries and her groundbreaking approach in making prints.

My sincere appreciation and thanks to Andrew Walker, Director of the Amon Carter

Museum of American Art, who was wonderfully supportive about this exhibition,

and Michaela for her vision of wanting an exhibition of Frankenthaler’s prints.

Exhibitions Manager Alessandra Guzman has managed all the exhibition details

flawlessly. As with any exhibition, there are so many others behind the scenes, and

from all of us who sometimes take for granted how easy it looks to mount an exhi-

bition like this, our sincerest thanks go to all of you!

I have often said that waking up without art around me would be like waking up

without the sun. Art illuminates the world around me and inspires me in count-

less ways. I hope that everyone who visits this exhibition comes away inspired by

the way Helen Frankenthaler’s art brings us joy and enriches our lives.

Collector’s StatementJordan D. Schnitzer

JORDAN SCHNITZER FAMILY FOUNDATION

AcknowledgmentsIn the same collaborative spirit as Helen Frankenthaler’s printmaking, this

exhibition and its accompanying publication were a collective effort by those at the

Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation (JSFF) in Portland, Oregon, and the Amon

Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. First and foremost, we are

grateful to Jordan Schnitzer for sharing his collection of prints by a passionate

and pioneering artist whose work continues to set the standard for innovative

printmaking today. We are indebted to the whole team at the JSFF for making

this show successful, most especially Catherine Malone, who worked diligently

to provide us with invaluable information about the collection, as well as Phil

Kovacevich and Sigrid Asmus for their graphic design and editorial expertise. At

the Amon Carter, we wish to thank Maggie Adler, Stefanie Ball, Lorraine Bond, Will

Gillham, Alessandra Guzman, Stacey Kelly, Shirley Reece-Hughes, Claudia Sanchez,

Tim Smith, Jodie Utter, and the curatorial and installation-services teams for

working to give Helen Frankenthaler her more-than-deserved attention and regard.

Aerie 2009 93-color silkscreen30 x 39 in.

Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma

July 7 – September 18, 2016

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

March 18 – September 10, 2017

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, New York

October 6 – December 10, 2017

Exhibition Schedule